


All That Is

by ZaliaChimera



Series: The Day After the Apocalypse [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Closure, Fear, Gen, Goodbyes, Hope, Hope vs. Despair, Humanity, M/M, Monsters, No Apocalypse, Reality Bending, Rebuilding, Recovery, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Rituals, Sacrifice, Vulnerability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-13 01:41:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19241269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZaliaChimera/pseuds/ZaliaChimera
Summary: The day after the apocalypse, Elias Bouchard opens his eyes and is alone.How do you adjust to being human, when the world has ended and your god is lost?





	All That Is

**Author's Note:**

> This should hopefully be a series of shorter fics, of characters adjusting to being human once more. The end of the world came, and went, and now there is just the aftermath.

The day after the apocalypse, Elias Bouchard opens his eyes and all that he sees is the ceiling of the Archives.

He blinks. Once, twice. Reaches for that core of him that sees and knows and finds- 

Nothing.

He reaches again, grasping for Sight, for Knowledge of what has happened and why he is here, on his back, why he cannot feel the pulsing life of the thousands of stories contained here. He reaches for his God, the great Eye that has sustained him for so very long, that he has worshipped and fed and taken succour from.

And he finds nothing.

A feeling rises up inside him, with racing heart and a rushing in his ears, with a dry mouth the sudden need to be as small as possible. It is strange and foreign but so familiar and he struggles to place it, until a word snaps to it and that word is Fear.

He is afraid. He is afraid, but the fear does not have the rich texture of expensive wine, or the drowsy satisfaction of a heavy meal, or the pleasure of an offering to his divine. It is a low, base feeling that makes him want to vomit, an animal reaction to something outside his control.

“I think he’s awake!”

The voice cuts through the fear. He recognises it, though it takes him a moment to place it. Martin Blackwood. But there is no static in his voice now, no echo of stories told and untold, of secrets that he could pluck from his mind as easy as breathing. And oh he tries. Reaches for it, for that hook that will allow him to drag the information warm and living from Martin’s head. But it’s gone and he feels so very hollow.

There are footsteps. Elias will not be seen like this, sprawled on the ground like some broken doll. He rolls onto his side, groans at the feeling of it. It is a bone deep ache and exhaustion that seeps through the core of him. The world is out of kilter, and he does not know why.

“Are you sure about this, Jon?”

“I’m sure. I owe him this at least.”

“You don’t owe him anything.”

“I- I need to do this, Martin. I need some closure.”

He pushes himself onto hands and knees, coughs around the dryness in his mouth. There are bruises on his hands, and a flashfire pain. When he kneels back and looks at his palms there are puncture marks, in the early stages of scabbing over, but still raw and painful where they should be healed.

_The Watcher’s Crown bites into his skin, searing it with exquisite agony. He raises it high above the head of his bound Archivist, whose eyes are wide and dark with all Knowledge. Blood runs down his arms, stains the metal of the Crown. It does not matter. The time to slough human trappings is upon them. The Archivist stares at him with elation and the sweetest terror._

“Hm. Martin said you were awake.”

“Archivist.”

The word comes out dusty and oddly empty. His tongue feels strange on the letters, devoid of power.

“I’m not the Archivist anymore. I’m just- just Jonathan Sims.”

Elias frowns and looks up at his Archivist. Jonathan Sims looks back down at him.

_He lowers the Crown onto the Archivist’s head, watches it cut into his skin, and the Archivist cries out in pain and ecstasy. In his eyes, Elias can see eternity. In his eyes Elias can see their god, and their god looks back._

Jon looks exhausted. There are wounds on his forehead and his hair is matted with blood. His face is pale and drawn and Elias has never seen him look more at peace. 

He sits down cross-legged on the floor in front of Elias and looks at him. There is nothing inhuman about it, and yet Elias shies away from his gaze anyway, and studies his face to avoid meeting his eyes directly. 

“What did you do to me, Archivist?”

Jon lets out a soft huff. “I didn’t do anything to you. Not personally.”

“Then what happened?”

He is used to being able to rip the truth from men’s minds and throats and now his voice comes out as the growl of an injured dog.

Jon does not answer immediately. He glances up towards the ceiling, a familiar gesture of thought, an that at least has not changed. “I- I became something else for a while,” Jon says. He speaks hesitantly, uncertain. Elias knows that some things cannot be forced into words, but he longs to reach out an touch his Archivist’s mind and Know.

“You ascended,” Elias says. “You became a conduit to our god.”

“Your god,” Jon says, a note of rebuke in his voice. “I became something else. I could see everything, I _Knew_ everything. All that is and all that was, and I was whole. I could see secrets hidden since the dawning of the world. Every thought and emotion and desire and I was transcendent.”

There is a dreamy quality to his voice. It is similar to the way he would read a statement, but Elias does not feel it in the same way. They are just words told by a skilled speaker, not a god cursing his lips with horrifying power.

“And then?” Elias asks, as though he can coax some spark of that terrible gift out from him.

Jon blinks at him. His eyes are very human. “I remade the world.”

Something blazes in Elias’ chest, hot and hungry. “The ritual worked! But then-“

Why? Why can he not feel his master’s gaze upon him? Why can he no longer See? Why is he here, blinded and afraid?

“It worked,” Jon says. “The Eye saw all. It saw all that is, and all that was. But it could never see all that would be. And I made a choice.”

Ice floods through Elias’ veins, and he feels another roll of that deep, sickening fear that makes him gasp for breath as surely as if he were trapped in the depths of Too-Deep-I-Cannot-Breathe.

“Archivist. What did you do?”

“I guided the world’s Becoming, and while it was in flux, I severed the links of the Powers to this reality, and sealed it away from them.” He tilts his head to one side, gaze sharp. “The Ritual itself severed the bonds for most of them. After that, the remaining bonds weren’t so difficult.”

His voice wavers. The final tethers may not have been quite so simple as he makes it sound.

It isn’t important. What is important is the way that Elias feels as though he has been punched. The gnawing emptiness inside him where his god should be. He cannot remember the last time he did not feel that constant considering gaze on him and now? Now he is alone.

“Why?” The word bursts out of him, and he is surprised to hear the hurt and pain in the words, how harsh they are with loss and grief. But he has lost his god and his purpose and how is he supposed to exist alone like this? 

Elias raises his head and finally, finally meets Jon’s gaze. “You could have been a god. Our Divine made manifest in this world, eternal and all-seeing. Why? Why would you give that up?”

He doesn’t understand, and that lack of knowledge burns.

Jon’s face crumples, the lines of pain and exhaustion on his face becoming clear. Elias remembers so clearly the way he had looked while he wore the Crown, blood dripping from his brow and the knowledge of all creation in his gaze, beatific in his ascension. And now he looks so very human.

“I never wanted that,” Jon says. “I never- I never wanted to be anything other than- than Jon. I just needed time to figure out who that was.”

He sounds so small. It is strange to see him without the weight of their master upon him, but still bearing the marks. This is not the man who had walked into his office for interview an eternity ago. But nor is he the Archivist with lightning on his lips. There is still something about him though, Elias thinks. Something transcendent in his fragile humanity, lost and regained.

Elias sits back heavily, leaning against the nearest desk. He could use a smoke. He could use a drink or ten. He is so tired, and he knows that this is just shock numbing him and there is every chance that when it wears off it will kill him.

“What do we do now?”

“I have no idea what you’re going to do,” Jon says dryly. “I’m going home.”

“Right,” Elias says. “I suppose that we can discuss this further on Monday.”

Jon gives a soft, sharp little laugh. “I’m not coming back, Elias.” He hates the gentleness in his voice. “I’m never coming back. Consider this my resignation, effective immediately.”

He doesn’t understand. He stares at Jon. “But-“

“There’s no Archivist anymore. I killed it. The Institute is still here, but all of this-“ He gestures around him to the boxes and files full of statements. “They’re just stories now. I’m done. Me, and Martin. Basira and Daisy and Melanie. We’re all done.”

As if in response, the door opens and Martin steps in. He gives Elias a sour look. He too seems exhausted, lines around his eyes and his mouth, and his eyes are hard. There is no lonely chill around him though, no taste of spider-silk threads. He is just human.

“Are you ready, Jon? I’m- I’m really tired.”

Jon looks over at him, and it isn’t hard to see the way that his expression softens. Elias does not need god-given sight to recognise that deep affection. It leaves a sour taste in his mouth.

“I think so.” He pushes himself up to his feet.

“Wait!” Elias says, leaning forward towards his Archivist, as though if he can just find the right words then this will be over and things will be as they should once more, and he will feel himself pinned beneath the Beholding’s gaze again.

They both look at him.

“What- what do I do now?”

Does he really sound like that? Empty and small and broken?

Jon shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t care. You should be grateful for the chance to find out though. I wanted to kill you. It was Martin who persuaded me to let you live. He’s more merciful than I am.”

Elias looks at Martin, meets his eyes, and there is no mercy in them. No, in this, Jon is blind. Death would have been kinder, and both he and Martin know this.

“But the Archives…”

“They’re not our problem,” Martin says. There is steel and cold water in his voice. “We’re leaving. All of us. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll give everyone else the chance to leave too. After that? We don’t care what you do. Burn the place down if you want and claim on the insurance.”

The thought repels him. The Institute is the work of lifetimes and there is so much knowledge here. And yet- what use is it without that which it was created to serve?

“Goodbye, Elias,” Jon says. His words are filled with chilling finality. “I-“ He goes silent and then shakes his head. There is a faint smile on his lips. “Goodbye.”

Elias watches as he twines his fingers with Martin’s and raises them to his lips to press a kiss there. They have eyes only for each other as they walk away.

In the silence of the Archives which were once alive with knowledge and power and service, the human known as Elias Bouchard closes his eyes and weeps for all that is and was and that will never be again.

**Author's Note:**

> You can follow me on [Tumblr](https://zalia.tumblr.com)!


End file.
